Youtube, a lot of people talk about it, even those that know nothing about (hi news channels trying to stay relevant !). As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been watching videos on Youtube for at least ten years (already ?!) Yeah, it was the good old times when I would watch crazy Snow White or Dora the Explorer parodies (my mind was already corrupted by the Internet haha).
Snow White looks kinda sick, here !
Anyway, what I like the most about Youtube is the no-limit mentality: raunchy humor is acceptable but not only ! We can just express ourselves freely on this platform, in general ! Or, at least, we could… I thought about this when I saw this new video from Le Rire Jaune, a very popular French youtuber. His video is called ‘If I were a dad’ where he talks about how he would raise his kids,etc… as a dad. What makes this video interesting is that it’s second version of this video, since the first one was considered as too dirty by Youtube, so they put an age restriction on it. All that jazz because we could see a dild…duster in it !
DAT swaaagg !
I can undesrtand that, in a way because Youtube wants to appeal to the most people possible (even very young people) in order to satisfy advertizers so they can reach larger demographics and get all that ching ching, if you know what I mean. Consequently, according to Youtube, all the videos that contain “Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor” and “Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown“.
The thing is we’re not watching a kid’s website ! All of those things I’ve just quoted are the core of what I like to call the ‘Youtube humor’. When I talk about ‘Youtube humor’, I mean the recurring kind of humor taht we find in viral videos, that’s accepted and understood by the majority of the Youtube community. Do you think that Jenna Marbles, Shane Dawson, Tana Mongeau, Onision became popular because nice little jokes about the last Care Bears episode? I don’t think so. Youtube may lose it’s soul, its authenticity and brutal honesty that made it so relatable. That was were we could really express our opinions, but also our talents. We could have a plateform where we could showcase our skills no matter what they are (music, directing, acting, etc…)
The perfect example of a talented Youtuber that could be credited for what she did best thanks to her videos. Rest in peace Christina </3
So, in addition to lose its soul, Youtube is selling its freedom. Yet, there would be ways to reconcile financial matters with creative freedom, like having a warning before a video that doesn’t match the criteria instead of censoring it. Of course you can make a living but do you have to sell your soul ? If we go this way, only identical, politically correct beauty gurus and boring unoriginal podcasts will remain and that’s not a good idea !
In the end I would say that it challenges freedom on the Internet, in general. Youtube is so influencial, if it gets to controlled, that could influence other websites to do the same and the Internet would be completely corporate. That would mean that we, Internet children, would become some kind of orphans in a way, sniff…
Anyway there’s so much left to say, but I’ll stop there for today !
Nyan Cats & Annoying Oranges
Pixie McQueen 😉
Pixie McQueen's World 